Here's a little more information about sugarpaste which we didn't want to clog up the category home page with . . .
Sugarpaste icing is often called ready-to-roll icing or roll-out icing and is gives fantastic results which even first-time cake decorators will be able to achieve with ease Sugarpaste is simply a blend of natural sugars with a little added water and vegetable oil, which allows the icing to be handled, shaped and moulded similar to marzipan.
Over the past 20 years sugarpaste has replaced royal icing to become the main type of icing used for wedding and celebration cakes. Sugarpaste became very popular in Australia (and in fact some people refer to it as Australian Icing) and spread to the UK. It is now attracting a following in Canada and the USA where buttercream has been the traditional icing, or "frosting"; and cake decorators across Europe are also switching on to sugarpaste's potential. As with most things, there are several brands and the old adage definitely applies . . . you get what you pay for.
Cake-stuff.com recommends Professional Regalice, made by Renshaw - holders of the royal warrant. Please note that Professional Regalice is not the same product as cheaper quality brands or even cheaper Supercook "Regalice" sold in supermarkets . . . more about this below. The very name Regalice is sometimes incorrectly used as a generic term to describe all sugarpastes - just as many of us call our vacuum cleaner a "Hoover". This can cause confusion.
Renshaw have been producing Regalice sugarpaste for over 100 years, with early recipes using lemon juice as a natural thickener and stabliser, later replaced with vinegar (acetic acid). This is why trade blocks of Regalice give of the faintest whiff of vinegar when first unwrapped . . . something which has confused some cake decorators for years! Today, Regalice is loved for its natural, slightly vanilla, flavour.
Renshaw bought over a company called Scott (probably best known for Scotbloc chocolate flavour cake covering) and, later, also Supercook . . . they of the supermarket cake decorating range. Before you think we're just being sugarcraft snobs, let me say we've got nothing against Supercook per se. The problem we have is that the new Renshaw Scott Supercook brand decided to re-name the cheap sticky ready-to-roll icing as (you've guessed it) Regalice . . . and in some cake decorating circles that almost amounts to blasphemy!
Seeing the backlash from cake makers, Renshaw then re-branded the original Regalice as Professional Regalice, but the change was so subtle that many people missed (and continue to miss) the important difference between the new supermarket Regalice and the original Professional Regalice. Professional Regalice is a top quality sugarpaste icing with excellent covering properties, providing a professional finish without being too sticky to work with or liable to crack as easily as cheaper brands. Professional Regalice is arguably the best sugarpaste you can buy today and is used by professional bakers, cake decorators and chefs all over the world.
For busier cake makers, cake-stuff.com also recommends our Premium Sugarpaste . . . also produced by Renshaw and sometimes called by different names, such as Covering Paste. This sugarpaste is available in white and ivory in 5kg (11lb) trade packs only, but offers great quality and fantastic value for money. It's our best-selling brand of sugarpaste and we've sold literally tonnes of the stuff to trade customers over the years, as well as to dozens of schools and colleges.
We're also now stocking Covapaste - another premium sugarpaste well known throughout the baking industry. In fact, many famous celebration cake companies (such as Classic Touch Cakes) swear by it and won't use anything else! It's more pliable than Regalice and produces a beautifully smooth finish, with a delicious vanilla aroma and flavour. We honestly don't think you'll be disappointed and if you use a lot of sugarpaste on a regular basis we'd be delighted to negotiate an extra-special price for you . . . just get in touch!
We also stock a selection from the full range of 22 colours of M&B Luxury Sugarpaste. A softer sugarpaste because of the PPM higher colour concentration (Parts Per Million) but used extensively within the sugarcraft world. We don't keep all 22 shades as they simple duplicate with the more popular Regalice.
Best before date will be at least 2-3 months from date of purchase and normally much longer, with 4-6 months the norm. If a long BBE date is crucial, please contact us in advance of ordering and, stock permitting, we will do our best to oblige. Please remember that suppliers simply don't produce sugarpaste with a BBE date beyond a certain date, so if you need some for a year's time it may simply have to be a case of waiting before you order.
Professional Regalice is also available in a full range of popular colours in handy 250g packs. Please note that our prices for these 250g packs are so competitive that we do not als offer 5kg trade packs of coloured Regalice . . . the prices would be more-or-less the same as buying 20 x 250g packs. Plus, using the 250g packs allows you to buy more-or-less the precise quantity you require without the risk of any unused sugarpaste going hard. This offers much better value-for-money. Coloured Professional Regalice is not flavoured, except Chocolate (Brown) Regalice which does taste of chocolate . . . delicious!
M&B Luxury Sugarpaste is available in 500g packs only and, again, we keep our prices low so that buying 10 packs is still less than many stockists would charge for a full 5kg block.
Please remember colours shown on cake-stuff.com are limited by photography and shades may appear to vary on different PC monitors.
A bit of sugarpaste trivia: forms of sugarpaste have been used by doctors and nurses to treat wounds for centuries. Sound daft?
Well, apparently archaeologists have found evidnce of sugar and honey being used to treat wounds in ancient Egypt and there are records of sugar pastes being used to treat open wounds in the Crimean War . . . the science is the same. From what we can gather (and without going into any gory details) there is an "osmotic effect" where the bacteria infecting a wound prefer the richer food source offered by the sugar and so migrate to the sugarpaste.
This offers an effective, easy, cheap and painless way to treat wounds, especially in environments where clinical cleanliness and resources are limited, such as the battlefield . . . something which as attracted a lot of interest from the military. Here's a tiny part of one of many recent reports on the subject:
European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases volume 7, No 4, August 1988
A sugar and polyethylene glycol paste is introduced which has marked antimicrobial activity and is available in thick and thin forms. The paste was used to treat 20 patients with chronically infected abdominal and perineal wounds that had failed to respond to conventional forms of treatment. Complete healing was achieved in 19 patients. The paste was especially effective in the treatment of large abscess cavities with small external openings. It was inexpensive, and easy and painless to apply.
